In the current information age, use of information technology (IT) tools proliferate in all walks of life, including managing and generating information and data in business and industry. For example, various content authoring software are available to allow a user to generate information or content (such as marketing materials, e.g., marketing flyers, pamphlets, etc., for a particular marketing event) for a targeted audience. Other IT tools may be employed to facilitate distribution of the marketing materials by e-mail or mail to the targeted audience.
In the typical instance in marketing, the user must mentally and manually manage the collection and flow of marketing information, even if software tools are used by the user to assist with generation and transmission of the marketing materials and other content. That is, the user typically needs to use one software tool to generate text, another to generate graphical elements to be inserted in the material, yet another to compose the various information elements into a single presentation, another to create or assemble a distribution list using another software, etc. Further, such marketing materials typically require supervisory approval before distribution to the targeted audience, and therefore the marketing materials are provided to the supervisor electronically and/or in hardcopy form, and upon approval by the supervisor are distributed. However, a marketing professional who is familiar with a conventional process of putting together marketing material would appreciate that there are many more steps that must be performed manually and/or mentally, in such process.
Such process is cumbersome, even if software tools are available, since each software has its own interface and format, and the user must operate multiple interfaces and act as the integrator of the multiple tools.
Further, although a survey can be a useful marketing tool, it is compiled in a disparate process conventionally, and is typically not integrated in the tools for developing a marketing campaign or marketing event.